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The pedalboard you see here was the one I used on a Frances The Mute tour, and that was the last time I used such a massive one. It was comprised of three boards which surrounded me, then one more pedalboard on top of the Ampeg 8×10 cabinets. Not only was it a lot of road cases, it was a lot of weight. The crew told me that my bass rig was the heaviest of all band members gear- my stuff weighed more than all the drum cases combined! Here’s the list:

I also had an Evil Twin direct box and assorted speakers, cables, pickups, tubes, and pedals for either future use or back up, all in a giant road case with my strings and picks.

Not a lot of bands or musicians get the chance to be this overindulgent, but it was at a time when The Mars Volta was trying to reach beyond past and present, and we did whatever had been done. I got to drive my bass tech, Jerry Riccardi, crazy by always trying pedals on pedalboards and then yanking them off and replacing them with others. As my pedalboard grew, Jerry would have to build the board in the chain that I had dreamed up. It was an exciting time for me, but likely a taxing time for Jerry, even though he never complained (thanks Jerry!).

The reason some pedals got booted for others was simple- I just didn’t use them as much as the others. One pedal that got taken off was my Digital Whammy pedal. Although it was a great pedal, the band needed me to always maintain a certain frequency level so going up an octave was not an option. Dropping down was cool but I had other pedals that did that. The Whammy also took up a ton of space due to its large size, so that was another reason why I’d yank it so I could replace the same real estate with two pedals.

Another pedal that didn’t last long in its position was the Fulltone Octafuzz. That pedal sucked too much low end, and again, I couldn’t have a pedal take me out of the frequency range in which the band needed me. It had a cool, saturated sound but in the end, it also didn’t work as well as other fuzzes I owned and it never worked well with other pedals.

My Ernie Ball volume pedal was another pedal that was removed because of it’s size and lack of use. Instead of using the volume pedal for volume dynamics, I would just shut off my Boss CS-2 compressors to bring down my volume. It wasn’t the same tone but I figured when we’d drop in volume, the full dynamics of my tone weren’t being heard through the PA speakers anyway. I eventually put another CS-2 on my main board with a different setting so I could do dynamic shifts. Jerry called one CS-2, mild, and the other, spicy.

Another reason why some pedals were eliminated from the board was because of their gain structures. If you look, you see the famous Mu-Tron envelope filter and the Moog Ring Modulator.

Both pedals have gain knobs on them and are not true bypass as a result.

There was always a chance that these two particular pedals could affect my tone, volume and signal strength so I’d put them in a loop via the Boss loop selector. By doing this, I essentially pulled the pedals out of the signal chain, so when I wanted to introduce the effect, I could just step on the Boss so the Mu-Tron or Moog would get pulled into the signal chain via the loop selector.

Additionally, having two loop pedals took up extra space. When I decided that had to go, I pulled the Mu-Tron because I didn’t use it as much. The Moog Ring Modulator was a big part of our songs so it won out.

In the end, it also comes down to trial and error, and just plain, personal preference. Some pedals got pulled just because the sound or function wasn’t to my liking. I once bought a Chopper pedal because of all the hype; turns out it was just that. All hype, nothing more.

I hope this post sheds some light on how I build my pedalboard. In the end, the deciding factors are based on what you need, what your band needs and ultimately, what sounds musical. Once you choose your pedals based on those criteria, be prepared to hear, “NO, you can’t do that!” from crew guys because of powering or cabling logistics, which are also important. It is all in the trial and error stage until you get what works, what sounds great and what makes you happy.

It was an honor working for TMV and Juan. I learned more during those years then all my other tours put together. It’s quite a badge of honor to walk on any stage in the world, look down at any pedal board and say, “eh, that’s cool, but I’ve had more….with a bass player.” I believe at the peak there were 42 pedals in the live rig. – Jerry Riccardi

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13 Comments

Donovan

I remember being 13 and seeing TMV at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, CA on the Francis tour, and thinking “That’s the craziest looking bass rig I’ve ever seen”. I think that was the first time I realized that effect pedals can be amazing on bass guitar. Several years and thousands of dollars later, and I’m buried in pedals, and couldn’t be happier. Thanks for inspiring me.

Paul

Sscruff

How can you say that a pedal like the Chopper is all hype? Adam Jones used it on 10,000 Days, tastefully I might add. I would think that a prolific player such as yourself would have more of a positive review on a dynamic pedal like the Chopper. Mayne by itself it’s not great, but when combined with other pedals it is.

Jerry

It was an honor working for TMV and Juan. I learned more during those years then all my other tours put together. It’s quite a badge of honor to walk on any stage in the world, look down at any pedal board and say, “eh, that’s cool, but I’ve had more….with a bass player.” I believe at the peak there were 42 pedals in the live rig.

and i get mad beacause i have 12 pedals ani cant make space for other 3 more beacause i go to the raharsals in a motorbike and i havent got space to travel with my pedalboard so i put one for one all the pedals in a bag every each friday and plug and unplug every time……

Vini

Is there any technical reason to put effects after or before a tube preamp? I have an ampeg v4bh and someone told me i should use all effects after the preamp out. Im in for some trial and errors, but it worries me if i will do some damage to my rig